We have launched a new side project called Seaside and Nautical. It will be selling a range of nautical themed gifts, interiors and selected photographs we have taken. The main objective is to test out an ecommerce site based on WordPress / WooCommerce / Genesis and how easy it is to maintain and work with on an ongoing basis. Since the mid 90’s we have always used Sellerdeck, but unfortunately they have pushed the prices up to be beyond the reach of their original target market of start ups and small businesses.

So far we have managed to launch the site without paying for any extras except the product, but as the site grows, takes orders and needs to be more sophisticated then we will move the hosting to something more powerful than the Fasthosts shared hosting it is on now and a install a number of paid for plug ins.

So far, we have been very impressed with WooCommerce, how simple it was to install on WordPress, load new products (both physical and digital), shipping rates, integration with Paypal and much more. The thing Sellerdeck has struggled with recently is that it has been increasingly difficult to customise with ease, the code has been buried elsewhere and hugely bulky. In addition, we have been developing on WordPress for a number of years now and bolting the two together, which on the whole is fine but integration isn’t as tight as it could be for example the search function.

We have also taken most of our own photographs for Seaside and Nautical using a lightbox and cutting them out.

Another benefit of using WordPress is that it is all based on the server so editing and order processing can take place through any browser or location.

Google is continually updating the way it ranks your web site organically and in Google Adwords. Keeping track of all the changes will make you dizzy and exasperated! The best policy for long term success has always been to concentrate on delivering fresh, relevant and well organised content to your web site and engagement of your audience through social media.

The most important way of measuring the success of any web site is through the emails, phone calls and eCommerce conversions you achieve. However, if you wish to track your web site’s performance and micro manage to improve your rankings to give you chance of hearing from new customers, Google has a range of tools to help you.

If you are a client of ours, we will have set you up with a free Google Account and installed Google Analytics on your web site as part of the original project. Google Analytics is an ever changing tool that gives you every type of analysis and drill down to the number of visitors on your site, how long they stay, where they came from and what they purchased (if you take orders on-line). However, a while ago, Google started encrypting their search results and the keywords users typed in to find your web site stopped being shown in Analytics. Fortunately, they have partially remedied this huge hole with a new tool in Google Webmasters – which incidentally they’ve also re-named as the search console at the same time.

Google Webmaster tools gives you a lot of help with your web site and areas for improving code, how many pages are indexed but the area that has recently been completely transformed is the Search Analytics tool as per the above image. Search Analytics as can be seen above provides a high quality information with a variety of filters. What I have deleted from the graphic are the queries that are used to find your site which you can also drill down (graphic below) into and monitor your position in the organic rankings for the last 90 days (perhaps the only drawback is the limited amount of time you can go back and compare). From the graphic you will also note the number of updates that Google has done to its algorithm that it has felt worthy to mention.

Google Webmaster Tools Keyword Drill Down – check your position, impressions and more over 90 days

Another useful tool, in another Google application is the keywords tool in Google Adwords. This allows you to put in a keyword, or page on your web site and it will provide similar keywords searched by users and how many times they are searched each month. When you have been in your industry and business for a while using industry terms, it is sometimes surprising to see what your potential customers type in! A classic example is an electrician would call a light bulb a lamp.

When we launched our first e-commerce web site in the late 90’s (our attempt to cash in on the .com bubble!) on Actinic V2, the delivery options were limited and a straightforward migration from the successful mail order business sector.

Taking an order and shipping it out within 28 days was the norm and customers were always delighted if they received their goods within 7 days. Now 15 years later, expectations of purchase process are completely different with the way ahead being shown by consumer led companies, in particular Amazon.

Amazon in Co-Op Maidenhead

Customers now expect next day delivery as standard and with Amazon moving to 7 day delivery cycle (including ordering on a Saturday and receiving the goods on a Sunday), customer’s expect all other businesses to follow suit. This increasing expectation has led to a number of business changes:

1. Delivery Options

Sending a package out, non signed for on Royal Mail within 28 days just won’t cut it any longer. Increasingly, there is also little point in just offering a standard courier service sometime in the following week or so. As a business, you need to be able to offer the following options :

Next working day delivery

Signed for

Trackable deliveries

Urgent pre-time deliveries

Customer time slot delivery

Drop off at a local location

Click and collect

Most of these can now be achieved through a good quality courier, pre 12, pre 10 and pre 9 deliveries standard fare. The only problem with putting these on the web site is that if you do not have sufficient stock to immediately fulfil the order the customer will be left frustrated that they were offered the option. In addition, even if you note clearly by the delivery options, you will have the occasional customer who will order at 8pm on a Saturday and expect their selected pre 9am time on a Sunday (as Amazon would!). Using Sellerdeck or Woocommerce e-commerce as your ecommerce infrastructure this is simple to do.

Dropping off at a local location is a trickier proposition. Our understanding is that if you have Parcelforce the goods will be delivered to a local Post Office but most other companies cannot afford to install dedicated lockers at various locations as per Amazon and above Waitrose. If you are a small company or individual, then there are a couple of other networks you can use to deliver to local newsagents for example CollectPlus.

Will this change continue at such a pace? Unfortunately for the Merchant but fortunately for the customer, same day delivery in major cities is becoming the norm and in America, Google is leading their shopping in major towns with e/retailers uploading their inventory for customers to pick up (dramatically increasing Click and Collect). And nobody mention the drones….

Cater For You Limited which we set up in 2003 to test a number of technologies, uses a range of courier solutions to implement most of these and it was noticed that they improved customer service. If you were to pick one top recommendation from the list it would be to use a courier such as DPD who do time slots as this improves your customer satisfaction no end and thus repeat business.

2. Stock Availability

Traditionally, customers would place an order and the delivery times would mean that merchants could hold little stock and back to back orders from their suppliers. This is becoming less of an option with customers expecting next day delivery. The Internet has meant that instead of a general local store selling a small range of many things, web sites can now specialise in extremely narrow ranges, but do them comprehensively. Therefore, if you are going to encourage repeat business, holding stock and delivering it the next working day is essential.

3. Working Practices

The traditional 9-5 of a wholesaler, e-tailer or other outlet may be something that will also change. Traditionally couriers will pick up from the merchant between 3-5. However, what if your customer expectation is to order up to 11pm at night! Most couriers of course will not pick up too much later as they have to reach their trunking network slots, but it is possible that you could arrange the collection for closer to six (depending on how close to the depot you are). For example, we occasionally use ebuyer and they have ordering up to 11pm at night, though they don’t do time slots!

Will it Affect You?

A lot of our customers are in specialised business markets with some technical expertise required, so there is a level of expectation that these changes will not affect them. However, as we work closely to understand our clients, we have seen first hand that new entrants will develop a web presence and sell the product at much lower margins than is traditional for the industry but have no technical expertise relying on the customer knowing what they require. They will however back it up with Internet levels of product service ie next day deliveries, timed deliveries and much more.

Combining organic rankings and Google Adwords is now essential to maximising the return of your web site. We have been sent a number of Adwords vouchers by Google for use by customers who have never used Google Adwords previously. The deal is that they will match your first month’s spend up to £150 in your second month.

Contact us now for more information on how to set up your Google Adwords account.

We have recently re-launched the web site of Robert Sas Villa Rentals an existing customer of many years who needed a facelift of their existing web site to provide a range of features including:

More optimised web site

More efficient coding

More prominent display of images

Overall look and feel

The web site took a number of months to update with the new CSS styling and features such as Lightbox for the pop up images galleries but we are pleased that it is now re-launched and promoting their villas to rent business.

As Robert Sas Villa Rentals is a growing business, the site is an ongoing project with a number of new villas available for rent becoming available all the time. In addition, as they are based in Marbella, Spain, they are able to provide a more personal and on the spot service to their clients.

The distance hasn’t been a problem between Chalfont Web Design and Robert Sas Villa Rentals as Skype has been used to share screens and discuss various aspects of the design work.

Below is Villa Annabel, one of the most prominent villas available to rent.

Chalfont Web Design were asked to provide a cost effective web design solution for a local (Chalfont St Peter) catering supplier specialising in modern catering for both businesses and private functions.

The customer wished to have the infrastructure set up and populate the web site themselves with graphics and content.

Chalfont Web Design provided a basic solution built on WordPress with a training session to show the basics of uploading the images and creating new pages which they picked up very quickly and carried forward.

The site is aimed at generating enquiries for their high quality catering services in the Chalfonts, Amersham, Beaconsfield and other local areas.

Chalfont Web Design has re-designed the CSE sister company’s main web site – www.consysequip.com. The brief was to freshed up the design and to enable the customer to be able to make blog posts and updates to the pages themselves and boost their proposition for Electrical Control Panels and associate skills within various vertical markets.

The solution implemented is the WordPress Content Management System based around the Genesis framework and a bespoke child theme. The customer now has complete control of the web site and can update and edit pages, insert photos and documents and more. The RSS feed includes all pages on the web site and uses feedburner to monitor the subscriber numbers. Google Analytics is also installed as standard for visitor tracking.

After approximately a year in development(!) we have today launched Deliciously French of Cookham’s ecommerce web site.

The site is based on Actinic V10 and features

Single product per page for enhanced search engine optimisation

Lightbox for enlarged images

Completely bespoke design using Dreamweaver

Submission to Google Shopping

Integration with Worldpay

Many of the photos on the site were also taken by Chalfont Web Design on the premises.

The web site was a particular pleasure to do as the owner Noel Stopien is so passionate about French food and the quality of the products he sells from this shop – this is something we hope to develop and capture into words in the coming months with the ongoing development of the web site.

Its been extremely busy since we last posted in January. The most recent customer win is for Warner Meats in Chalfont St Giles who we’ve posted a quick holding page for and are currently busy working on an Actinic Ecommerce web site ready for the bar-b-q season.

We’ve been working for other existing clients including Trading Depot and a new Actinic V11 micro site, an office furniture web site, ongoing migration and monetisation of British Battle which now has close to 2 million visitors a year, and a new Rob Sas Villa Rentals web site which will be launching in a few weeks.

We also have a number of other web sites which are brand new in the pipeline and existing customers, which we will hopefully be able to post next time we blog.

As usual been very busy working with existing customers and also a couple of new ones. Trading Depot where we do some consulting have launched a new Actinic web site – not built by Chalfont Web Design – Insulation Depot – which is planned to be the first of a few micro web sites dedicated to niche areas of their business.

Amongst the other web sites we’ve been working on includes a new page on the Battle of Bannockburn and also migrating some of the other pages to a new CSS format. The site averages around or over 10,000 visitors per day.

Cater For You is still growing with visitors and number of products stocked – recent additions include Polystyrene Trays. They also have a new Facebook page and Twitter feed which will be used more in their social media marketing strategy throughout the year.

The Livcom Awards web site has also had its annual re-launch with the promotion of their 2012 awards which will be held in the UAE.

Currently under development are a couple of WordPress web sites, 4 existing and new Actinic Ecommerce web sites (using V10 and V11) and updates to the other existing customer web sites.